Summer has officially arrived in my house. My three girls (ages 9, 12, and 13!) are home and party hopping, so I’ve decided to give the weekly digest a breather.

At the same time, I have some big news to share. l am now an Inc. columnist!

I’m filing weekly stories on founder signal trends for Inc.’s Startup section, and including examples from what I’m seeing in realtime on platforms like LinkedIn and Substack.

My first piece dropped earlier this month—The 5-Step LinkedIn Strategy Founders Are Using to Attract Investors.

I’ve included the full text piece below, as most of Inc.’s content is gated.

I’d love to know what you think! Feel free to reply to this email directly or DM me on LinkedIn.

More to come on this soon.

Thank you for being a valued subscriber of WINS LIST.

Expand your influence. Build your wealth. Celebrate your success.

Happy Summer! See you next week.

Amie

In 2011, Shaquille O’Neal broke the news of his retirement from the NBA on Twitter—before informing his team or the press. At the time, this was unprecedented. He had operated outside the structure of the system, delivering a personal video directly to his roughly 3.8 million followers. This bold move would change communication protocols forever. 

It was then that the trend of ‘individual as chief communications officer of self’ began. Athletes and celebrities began to leverage their own voices on social channels, where their followings would eventually grow to surpass those of many major media outlets. The trend started on Twitter and spread to Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and wherever the coveted eyeballs would follow.

15 years later, LinkedIn, the sleepy, slow growing networking giant has emerged as the super saturated, uncapped communication platform for the world’s professionals to share their news. Born in Reid Hoffman’s living room in 2002 and positioned as a digital rolodex, LinkedIn has now amassed over 1.3 billion users across 200 countries and regions worldwide.

Those 1.3 billion users exist, in their simplest form, as a massive database of self-managed professional profiles. Among the profiles adorning LinkedIn’s virtual walls are tens of thousands of founders, investors, CEOs, and high net worth individuals—a healthy percentage of whom are doing a lot more than the basic lurk and scroll. 

Startups today are using LinkedIn as a megaphone for their business updates. They are taking their news—whether inked in reputable publications or not—and running with it. 

Like most professionals, founders have spent decades carefully amassing their LinkedIn followings. They understand the power of their own communication. They are not relying on mainstream media to attract investors and generate deal flow. Rather, they are leveraging media coverage as a conversation starter for their LinkedIn networks.

Here is how they’re doing it.

As they build their startups, founders are showing up at the LinkedIn table with fully fleshed out profiles containing featured interviews, original commentary, and a stream of business updates. They are sitting atop healthy followings—the average CEO has 360,000 followers on LinkedIn—and they are seeing excellent engagement on their posts. On the platform that holds your entire rolodex, audience does matter—for reach and perception. 

Startups using LinkedIn for deal flow are posting their own updates on the regular, showing deeper proof of momentum, traction, and credibility. Founders are owning the narrative around their businesses. They are going further than simply reposting a feature story. They are leveraging them for their own storytelling. Founders are using their voices to influence outcomes, particularly those that involve investors, partners, and key stakeholders—most of whom are using LinkedIn to do the same.

Funding announcements are big on LinkedIn, and it’s not just the founders talking. Venture capitalists are collaborating with startup founders after a raise, sharing key information about their investments, in their own words, alongside formal deal announcements. With votes of confidence from investors rolling in on LinkedIn, startups are getting perception points, which can lead to a greater likelihood of early stage success. Win, win.

Investors are looking for healthy startups showing proof of traction and momentum, before the first meeting. LinkedIn is the perfect playground to showcase these stats. With each win, startups are posting up their numbers, i.e., “We grew ARR from $200K to $1M in 9 months. Here’s how.” This type of update holds 10x more value to investors than: “We are beyond excited about the great things our product is doing for customers. Go team.” Numbers talk. Investors listen.

As Steve Jobs said, “The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller.” A founder with 50,000+ LinkedIn followers, a scalable business, and a track record of investment can still do more. They can add their personal touch. On LinkedIn, more than other social platforms, leadership is celebrated. A following cannot be built on a successful business alone. A following is built on reputation, and reputation is forged through words and actions. Leaders build trust on LinkedIn. Trust creates deal flow.

This article was originally published on Inc.com. Read the full article here.